Offenbach am Main

Offenbach am Main is a city in the state of Hesse in Germany, on the left bank of the river Main. It borders Frankfurt and forms part of the Frankfurt Rhein-Main urban area, with a population of about 138,000 at the end of 2018. Documents mention a suburb in 770 and the place itself in 977, and from 1556 the counts of Isenburg made it their residence and built a palace there. Huguenot refugees of the seventeenth century made the town prosperous, notably through tobacco and cigar rolling, and in the twentieth century its economy rested on machine building, leather work, typography and design, and the automobile and pharmaceutical industries. About a third of the city was destroyed by Allied bombing in the Second World War. The philosopher Philipp Mainlander was born here in 1841 and took his pen name from the city.